Republican lawmakers got a lot of blowback over their new redistricting committee from legislative Democrats and sympathetic members of the public, but they got what they wanted when a parade of speakers stepped forward to air grievances against the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission.

Republicans who are upset with the work of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission are consoling themselves with the thought that they can undo the maps with a lawsuit, but that threat may ring hollow in the end.

Lawmakers, members of Congress and would-be candidates will only have to wait another five weeks or so to get a final answer on their districts, if the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission’s plan comes to fruition.

House and Senate Republican leaders announced this evening that they have each appointed three lawmakers to a committee charged with scrutinizing the maps created by the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission.

Democrats have looked to the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission as their best chance to change their fate as the perpetual minority — a position they’ve held for nearly all of the past 40 years in Arizona.

They got commissioners they liked appointed to the panel. The commission selected lawyers that many Democrats were pleased with. And they even awarded a contract to a mapping firm with historic ties to Democratic causes.

But in the end, the result looks like the status quo. And for the Arizona Democratic Party, that’s not a good thing.

After a pair of rare weekend meetings, the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission completed a rough outline of 30 “placeholder” legislative districts and is hopeful that it will vote on a final draft map today.